Battle of Waterloo June 18th 1815

I managed to get in a game over the weekend this time following on from Quatre Bras was Waterloo again from the base game of command and colours Napoleonic's

Again I played the allied side a quick glance of the battle maps sees a number of strong points in the allied position in the centre the the British guns and if the rifles can be moved forward into La Haye Sainte they would have range on the French units moved up onto the ridge added with the British heavy and guard cavalry behind the centre can be defended.

On the allied right we have the light infantry forward at Hougoumont with cannons and the foot guards behind which can be moved forward in support and maybe counter attack.

On the left the Belgian light infantry forward at Plancenoit are vulnerable and might need to be withdrawn abandoning the position as they are easy picking for the French young  guard.

On the French side the lack of light infantry 2 units 1 on each flank will reduce their mobility and make it harder to bring force quickly on  Hougoumont

Starting Positions

The battle opened with the French moving forward in the centre and coming under fire from the British guns and the 95th which had moved forward into La Haye Sainte which inflicted murderous casualties on the French Infantry and Guns (3 bombard guards blunted many french attacks)

Death of  General d'Erlon

The 95th at La Haye Sainte where causing alot of casualties resulting in the old guard being ordered to advance with the support of the cuirassiers and old guard cavalry forming square would leave the infantry exposed to the French infantry

The 95th at La Haye Sainte The old guard have moved forward

French push in the centre

The Farmhouse has fallen

The French Infantry pushed the Rifles from the farmhouse who by this stage had already earned their pay. The attack in the center had sucked in alot of troops from the French left allowing the lights and guard battalions to move forward and over run the opposing French troops but the cavalry failed to take the guns a close run thing but thankfully the battery kept firing

Swiss infantry are all that's left to stop the french flank being rolled

The advance on the right continued with the guards moving in on the french center and the lights hunting down the swiss regiment

Advance of the guards

The final shot at the depleted guard cavalry old guard and Marshal Ney still hold the Farmhouse

On the allied left you guard took Plancenoit from the Belgian light infantry but didn't advance further being checked by British guns.

In the end this one was 8-5 in favor of the allies with the French holding Plancenoit and La Haye Sainte the score line makes it look more one sided than it was.
The heroic defense of Hougoumont and the advance on the right combined with very effective counter battery fire from the British guns inflicting early causalities including a lucky hit on a general gave the allies a health early lead and forced the french to attack early as their own guns where knocked out (both the guard and the horse guns falling.)

The charge of the guard cavalry was close to breaking through the the allied centre if that had of worked it might have turned the tide for the French and trying to get the old guard with marshal Ney from the farmhouse would have resulted in high loses

Finished First unit

Some pics of the first unit for cc ancients roman republican medium infantry since last time the base has been flocked and the figures given a black wash and then sprayed on matt varnish below are the infantry poses the command figures and the group shot with command figures on the right of the unit left in photo still not sure what the final arrangement will be

Basing and closer order drill

With some free time again this evening I decided to base my almost finished Roman infantry

First step was to cut the plastic card into the base shapes and glue the figures on

Careful use of a ruler to mark out the 1.5cmx1.5cm squares followed by use of a stanley blade to cut along the lines and a little force to snap the card along the cut resulted in hopefully uniform sized bases.

The next step was the super glue the figures to the bases and stack them in a close order formation the results of various different formations can be seen below with command figures/ blocks 4-2 on the left/back/right

Republican Roman Medium Infantry

Having got some free time on Saturday morning I decided to finish off painting my Roman infantry.
These guys still need to be based washed with a black wash and varnished. I'm thinking of basing them on 1.5cm² plastic  modeling card and using magnetic signage material fixed to the bottom side of the plastic card to fix them to a steel base (low carbon not stainless as alot of stainless is austentite and non magnetic).

I'm not sure if to do them 5x3 with the 3 command figures at the back behind the block or 5x3 with the command figures at the side making it 6x3

The first pic is of the group as a whole 18 figures and all from the Italeri Republican Roman infantry set

Below is a close up of the 3 different infantry poses and then one of the 3 command figures

Battle of Quatre Bras June 16th 1815

Played a game of CC Naploeonics last night the battle of  Quatre Bras from the base edition of the game.

I played the allied side on this one. From my initial reading of the battle map there are three clear problems that the allied army faces one is the forward and well deployed positions of the French guns which makes the Dutch/Belgian units under the Prince of Orange positioned on the central ridge before the town very vulnerable. The second weakness of the allied position is the forward troops on the allied right including militia and a 3 strength light unit would be easy pickings for the mobile French light units who can move into the forest and battle. The third problem would be dealing with the superior French cavalry of  general Kellermann's cuirassier brigade more than a match for the Dutch light cav.

To counter this the allies have 2 units of grenadier guards who if I could get forward intact and on time might save the day.

The Battle opened with the above pictured French guns opening up and punishing the Dutch and Belgian infantry across the river followed by an advance on the French left which drove the Dutch from the forest.

Things where looking grim for the allied cause as the French push on the left had accounted for the Dutch Guns and light infantry for relatively light causalities the last Dutch unit above was later picked off again for poor return giving the French a 5-0 lead.

On the other flank not much was happening just the odd exchange of cannon fire and the Rifle regiment had move forward into the forest on the extreme left of the allied line keeping the French pinned on their side of the river.

At this stage my plan was starting to come un-stuck but the Grenadier Guards had made some progress forward just not quick enough to prevent the Dutch line for collapsing.

Next the French Cavalry went forward with La Grande Maneuver which was countered by an allied Cavalry change and then a French Cavalry charge  leaving the French very close to victory but almost spent with a lot of below strength units in forward positions.

The battle then developed into a race could the French cavalry pick of the  last allied units before the guards completed rolling up the French line.

Unfortunately it was not to be as the remaining French Cuirassier squadron launched a do or die assault on a British battery

The end result was a 9-8 victory to the French but with the cross-roads still in allied hands and British Infantry treating the French left but there was French heavy cavalry in the British rear.

I think what cost me this one was the poor return early on of the Dutch units in resisting the opening French attacks but it was close and a late rally card which got the guards back to full strength from 4 failed to rally the guns but all in all a fun game and a well deserved and hard fought victory for my opponent

Command and Colours The Great War

I have just backed command and colours the great war which is currently on Kickstarter more information available @https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1992455033/the-great-war-0.

This looks like an interesting project and one I was surprised wasn't announced in August last year.
So far the basic game will focus on the the 15-17 period of static trench warfare with expansion to cover the earlier and later periods including tanks and aircraft and other fronts. These seems like a project which will end up as vast as memoir 44 a game which I'm still enjoying and playing over 10 years sine the original box was released and I'm still hoping for more such as an Italian and French army packs.

I've been looking for a ww1 game for quite some time and have high hopes for this one based on how much I've enjoyed memoir 44 cc ancients and cc Napoleonics while also having a copy of 150th anniversary edition of battle cry and the base set of Samurai Battles both fun games but my own interest in history focuses more on European events.

What has impressed me with the different command and colours games is how with some tweaks the different periods feel very different and am excepting the great war to have a much slower pace than memoir 44 and with no artillery models but reserve counters for artillery maybe having to plot out the creeping bombardments pre battle  and trying then to keep the infantry attacks on timetable

First Of the Romans

Having being a long time fan of Richard Borg's command and colours ancients my current ambition is to play it on a 6ft by 4ft hex map Hotz mat found at http://www.hotzmats.com/ and 20mm figures similar to what Conrad Kinch of http://joyandforgetfulness.blogspot.ie/ has done with command and colours Napoleonic's. (Starting with the punic wars from the base game)

I have just finished the last of my Napoleonic's figures which I use to replace the blocks from command and colours Napoleonic's a much less ambitions undertaken as each block was replaced with a single figure.

With the Napoleonic figures completed for now I had time to get the first set of ancients figures on the work table for assembly and undercoating. These where Italeri set 6021 Roman Infantry more information on the figures can be found at the very useful plasticsoldierreview.com here http://www.plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=205.

The figures are quite nice looking although 1 of the 2 poses has the sword on the left hand side assembly was almost straight forward but the odd pilum was damaged  trying to force it through the hand grips and the set contains no spares which required the use of some metal replacements constructed from bits of paper clips.

The 3 figure above will be used to represent the strength of  the unit as in CC ancients each Infantry unit  has 4 blocks the musician standard bearer and centurion will be removed for the 1st 2nd and 3rd hits with the full block of figures  being removed when the unit is destroyed.

The current plan is that the final block will consist of 15 figures deployed in 5x3 ranks made up of the above figure front left has a paper clip pilum as do 1 or 2 of the back ranks with the shields raised over their heads.

Current progress is 18 figures undercoated

These will eventually become Medium (blue) Infantry when painted